Maps to the Stars

David Cronenberg's film initially appears to be an acerbic swipe at Hollywood ego and excess, along the lines of Robert Altman's The Player or Swimming with Sharks. But it soon sheds its superficially satirical surface to reveal a fiercely original take on the nightmare that lurks beneath the Hollywood sign. An excellent Julianne Moore plays fading star Havana Segrand, who is desperate for a role in a remake of a film that originally starred her abusive actress mother. Meanwhile, kiddie sensation Benjie Weiss (a fantastic Evan Bird, channelling a kind of Justin Bieber clone) is visited by his previously incarcerated sister Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), who tried to kill him in a house fire. From then on, all manner of ghosts appear with disquieting regularity in this gleefully perverse, haunting film. Beautifully shot in the blazing Californian sunshine by Peter Suschitzky, Cronenberg's movie fuses elements of Mommie Dearest and Sunset Blvd with the dreamy surreality of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive to craft a twisted Hollywood fairy tale with an unexpectedly heart-rending tragedy at its dark core.